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LFF scorecard suggests conservative trend

by Jeremy Alford, LaPolitics

The Louisiana Family Forum, the state’s leading faith-based advocacy group, has released its legislative scorecard covering this year’s string of regular and special sessions.

It’s the first scorecard that assesses actions from this new term of the Louisiana Legislature. And more than anything else the scores paint a picture of a state Senate that is slowly growing more conservative.

In terms of absolute support, roughly the same number of lawmakers from both chambers scored 100 percent with LFF’s legislative priorities: 16 this year compared to 17 last year.

The big difference is found in the next tier, where there are considerably more lawmakers — just about double the count — this term voting with LFF 80 percent to 99 percent of the time. In 2015, there were 26 lawmakers who fell into this category. This year, there are 51 lawmakers.

The number of “Life and Liberty Awards,” given to lawmakers who sponsor key bills, also increased, from seven to 10.

The Senate, though, shows the biggest differences.

There was only one senator who received a “Life and Liberty Award” last year, compared with four this year. Additionally, the number of senators voting with LFF 80 percent to 99 percent of the time shot up from three to 11.

Looking ahead to 2017, LFF President Gene Mills said it’s still early but his group’s developing issues agenda includes criminal justice reform, a “saner” school bathroom policy and end-of-life proposals.

View the scorecard here.